A variety of telecommunications equipment is remotely powered today. Telephones and Network Repeater devices are examples of remotely powered equipment. Obviously there are many advantages to remotely powering equipment, however this technique has not migrated to data communications equipment for several reasons. Data communications equipment has traditionally required high power levels to operate which has made it prohibitive to implement. The widely distributed nature as well as the use of shared media used in data networks has also made remote power impractical.
The desire to add remotely powered devices to a data network is being pushed by the convergence of voice and data technologies. The advent of IP Telephony, Voice over IP and Voice over Packet technologies has brought traditional telephony requirements into the data environment. It is not desirable to have a phone powered by a local wall transformer. It is desirable to have a centrally powered system that can be protected during a power outage.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide methods and apparatus for reliably determining if a remote piece of equipment is capable of accepting remote power.
It is another object of this invention to provide methods and apparatus for delivering remote power to remote equipment over 10/100 switched Ethernet segments and maintain compliance with IEEE 802.3 standards.